Category: protests

Nato’s secretary general says he fears the airing of a Dutch film criticising Islam will have repercussions for troops in Afghanistan. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s comments came after Afghans protested on Sunday against the film being made by far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders.

The Dutch government has warned Mr Wilders that the film will damage Dutch political and economic interests.

Mr Wilders says the film is about the Koran but has given few details.

In the past, he has called for the Koran to be banned and likened it to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

The project has already been condemned by several Muslim countries, including Iran and Pakistan.

Nato’s secretary general said he was concerned about his troops after the protests against the film in Afghanistan.

“If the [troops] find themselves in the line of fire because of the film, then I am worried about it and I am expressing that concern,” he said in a television interview.

‘Kick out forces’

On Sunday, hundreds of Afghans took to the streets in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to protest against the film.

Demonstrators burned Dutch flags, and called for the withdrawal of Dutch troops from the Nato force.

The demonstrators say they will step up their protests unless the Afghan government expels the troops.

The protesters also criticised the recent republication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in several Danish newspapers, and called for the withdrawal of Danish troops.

“We don’t want our government to have any diplomatic relations with these two countries,” Maulawi Abdul Hadi, one of the protesters, told the Associated Press news agency.

“We don’t want Danish and Dutch troops in Afghanistan. They should be kicked out of the Nato forces here.”

Mr Wilders has said he expects his 15-minute work will be shown in the Netherlands in March and released on the internet.

Dutch authorities have told him he may have to leave the country for his own safety amid reports of death threats.

Submission

Mr Wilders’ film is called Fitna, an Arabic word used to describe strife or discord.

He has said his film will show how the Koran is “an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror”.

Mr Wilders leads the Freedom Party, which has nine seats in the Dutch parliament.

He has had police protection since Dutch director Theo Van Gogh was killed by a radical Islamist in 2004.

Van Gogh’s film Submission included verses from the Koran shown against a naked female body.

January 25, 2008 Temecula, California. While our country is completely preoccupied with the election and the looming recession of our economy, Israel — our American government’s close ally who just received our generous $30 billion aid package — is engaging in what has been called a war crime and genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.

Human Rights organizations of all religious persuasions have been speaking out against the Gaza siege, joined by an expanding outcry from non-governmental and governmental organizations throughout the world. While leaders of the Muslim community in the US are calling for a special prayer during the Muslim Friday Prayers today, MuslimBridges.org is calling on all Churches and Synagogues to join with Muslims in prayers, and denounce the Israeli siege during the Jewish services on Friday night and Saturday, and the Christian services on Sunday.

Israel has imposed a complete lock-down of Gaza, this most densely populated place on earth. That means not only sealed borders and no access to food or medicine, but gas and electricity are also shut down. It is more than a miserable existence; it is a slow death. Many are now calling it a war crime. This siege intensified immediately after the $30 billion generous aid package was handed to Israel during the recent President Bush visit to Israel.

“Israel thinks it can get away with it because we are too busy with our problems, but this time it is different. Now people are fed up and recognize that Israel is often the aggressor behind our mess. What really concerns us now is that other crises may surface, such as a war with Iran, or another scandal bigger than the Mohammed cartoon, just to shift the attention away from the Gaza Siege,” said R. Shahman, an activist with MuslimBridges.org.

In anticipation of a potential scandal, MuslimBridges.org is looking to the Interfaith community to publicly denounce hate and slander against Muslims, and communicate to all people of faith that slander is not a result of “clash of religions,” Rather it is a clash of “Believers Vs. Unbelievers,” often manipulated for political reasons to avert attention from the real challenges facing all of us.

MuslimBridges.org applauds the support of all believers from Churches and faith-based organizations such as the Rabbis of NETUREI KARTA in Monsey N.Y., who make a clear distinction that Judaism absolutely rejects Zionism and speak out against the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel. This is in complete contrast to the so called “Top Rabbis of Israel” who are advocating genocide and carpet bombing against all Christians and Muslims in Gaza, “ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings” said Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu — one of the most senior theocrats in the Jewish State (The Jerusalem Post, May 30, 2007).

“We hope and expect our friends in Churches and Synagogues will denounce the Israeli siege, and any possible slander, just as every Islamic Center and Muslim organization in the US is providing a clear position standing against terrorism, putting it in writing and signing the Fatwa against terrorism,” stated Mrs. Shahman

Leaders of Churches and Synagogues are encouraged to participate in the following actions:

Power of prayer: To Join with Muslims in prayers for Peace and Justice in Palestine, the occupied Land. May God ease the suffering and bring about a peaceful solution.

To denounce the use by Israel of American taxpayers’ money to starve Gaza into a slow genocide and to demand a freeze on all aid given to Israel paid for by our tax money. The following Links are offered on MuslimBridges.org so that every member of a church or synagogue can simply send a clear message to our elected officials demanding immediate intervention.Contact White House – Contact your Senator – Contact your Representative

To educate congregations that slander, hate and siege and slow death of a rival group has no place in faith. Educational tools, articles and books are available through MuslimBridges.org.

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MuslimBridges.org is a non-profit faith-based California Corporation founded in December 2006, and run one-hundred percent by volunteers. It was founded with the mission to help spread peace, and to build bridges between people of all faiths-Jews, Christians and Muslims. The website, launched on Jan 22, 2007, is non-commercial, not-for-profit and does not accept donations. For additional details on the organization and the programs please visit: http://www.muslimbridges.org/.

If you are wondering who has most gall among the present lot of British MPs then you will invariably end up with the name George Galloway, the Labour MP, for a number of reasons. This gregarious and wickedly witty MP with a runaway tongue is known for his anti-Bush and Blair utterings, which, at times, even his staunch supporters find difficult to digest.Galloway has an everlasting reservoir of invectives, all tailor-made, to launch his attacks on his two prized political enemies. He has been the most vocal critique of the Iraq policies of Britain and the USA, and he never tried to hide his feelings in private or in public.

But many across the world found his way with words not quite palatable, which, more often than not, touched upon the profane, to say the least. But, no doubt, this burly politician is pure entertainment to the non-political and non-partisan audience. Continue reading “Galloway’s last punch at Blair”→

Huge Protest in Iraq Demands U.S. Withdraw

BAGHDAD, April 9 — Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric, took to the streets of the holy city of Najaf on Monday in an extraordinarily disciplined rally to demand an end to the American military presence in Iraq, burning American flags and chanting “Death to America!”

Residents said that the angry, boisterous demonstration was the largest in Najaf, the heart of Shiite religious power, since the American-led invasion in 2003. It took place on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, and it was an obvious effort by Mr. Sadr to show the extent of his influence here in Iraq, even though he did not appear at the rally. Mr. Sadr went underground after the American military began a new security push in Baghdad on Feb. 14, and his whereabouts are unknown. Continue reading “Huge Protest in Iraq Demands U.S. Withdraw”→

Bush Administration changes official position on legitimacy of Qur’an desecration allegations

June 4, 2005

The cover of the Qur’an

After an investigation of allegations that Islam’sholy book the Qu’ran was mishandled in front of inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Bush administration has acknowleged the credibility of some of these reports. According to Robert Burns of the Associated Press, U.S. military officials acknowledged that, “a Muslim holy book was splashed with urine,” and “a detainee’s Quran was deliberately kicked and another’s was stepped on.” The US government first denied a specific report that the Qu’ran had been flushed down a toilet at the prison facility, but on Friday agreed that similar allegations were indeed true.

GUATEMALA CITY — Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate “bad spirits” after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

“That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture,” Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday. Continue reading “Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit”→

On Friday the United Nations is expected to approve a resolution condemning Holocaust denial, one year after the first Holocaust remembrance day was celebrated. The bill was brought forward by the US, the European Community, Russia, Australia, Canada and Israel, and so far has 82 co-sponsors. The resolution was created in response to Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s repeated statements denying the holocaust ever happened, while at the same time promising to finish what Europe started – the extermination of the Jewish race.Quote: “The Israeli mission is hoping that a majority of at least 104 countries will support the resolution, as in the historical vote of November 1, 2005, designating January 27 as the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The second International Holocaust Day will be commemorated next Monday.Continue reading “UN resolution condemning Holocaust denial”→

(Babri Masjid and associated complex were totally destroyed on December 6, 1992.)

“Every civil building connected with Mahommedan tradition should be levelled to the ground without regard to antiquarian veneration or artistic predilection.” British Prime Minister Palmerston’s Letter No. 9 dated 9 October 1857, to Lord Canning, Viceroy of India, Canning Papers.

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‘One group of karsevaks blocked all entry points into Ayodhya to keep out central security forces, while another began to loot and burn Muslim homes’

Did the leaders know beforehand what was going to happen that afternoon? There can be no final answer to that question. Perhaps some did, others did not. Certainly one answer seems to emerge from our narrative, another from the likes of editor Chandan Mitra. Not that the leadership of the parivar comes off any better from Mitra’s graphic description of their behaviour during that crucial period when the attack on the mosque was mounted — the giggling political sanyasins, Uma Bharati and Ritambhara; Joshi overcome by the size of the mammoth crowd; Singhal, convinced that the karseva would go along expected lines and giving precise orders, to a crowd that could not care less, about how to wipe and clean the site of the projected temple; the moment of reckoning when the crowd goes berserk on seeing two karsevaks on the top of the domes of the mosque while the high command sat, ‘tense’, ‘sombre-faced’, ‘hopelessly sullen’, with faces like ‘grim death’; the lament of Rajendra Singh, the de facto supremo of the RSS, ‘the ministry is gone’; and finally the pathetic and belated attempts to calm down the crowd by the leaders taking turn in appealing to the karsevaks, while others like Acharya Dharmendra tried to interest an uninterested crowd in a bhajan.Continue reading “Black day of so called Indian Secularism”→

Photo: Muslims in Bangladesh demonstrate against the vilification of the Prophet (saws)

uploaded 15 Feb 2006

Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh organized a demonstration outside the national mosque after Jummah prayers today (03 February 2006) to protest against the printing of cartoons by the European press insulting the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Chief Coordinator and Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh, Mohiuddin Ahmed strongly condemned the attack on the Prophet (SAW) and said the terrorist West is conducting a crusade against Islam in the name of free speech and war on terror. He said that free speech was nothing more than another weapon of the West to fight its crusade against Islam and Muslims. The disbelievers around the world are joining their ranks to attack Islam, abuse theQuran, insult the Prophet (SAW), kill and torture Muslims and loot the resources of the Muslim Ummah. Mohiuddin Ahmed added that the agent and corrupt rulers have failed to protect the Muslims and their aqeedah. Furthermore, they continue to bow down in prostration to their European and American masters. The Muslims must reject the servants of the West – Awami League and BNP, establish the Khilafah government and join their ranks under the banner of the Khilafah to protect their belief and honour.

Mohiuddin Ahmed called upon the government to immediately issue a clear and unequivocal public statement condemning the attack on the Prophet (SAW) and made the following demands:

The government must recall its ambassador’s from Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Norway and Holland;

The embassies of these European countries must be closed down and their ambassador’s must be expelled.

Deputy spokesperson Kazi Murshedul Haque and Dr Syed as well as other central leaders of Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh were also present at the demonstration.